To establish a Small Business Financial Assistance Program to support small businesses during the COVID-19 emergency, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and introduce extraneous material into the Record on the topic of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, there has been a great deal of talk in the last few months on border security, what it takes to secure our border and what it takes to protect the safety and the security of the American people.

Today, we are taking a few minutes with different Members to share very powerful but very impactful stories from their districts. This is not hyperbole or set up for histrionics, but sometimes the message of actually what is going on in our country doesn't always cut through with our media outlets.

So today, the different Members, many of them have special relationships with these folks they will be referencing and talking about today in this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), our first speaker, who represents Indiana's Sixth District and serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure and Foreign Affairs Committees. But even more impressive to me is that Mr. Greg Pence is a veteran of our Marine Corps, and he is a successful businessman.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Mr. Pence's words today and the powerful expression of how it is impacting the State of Indiana.

One of our new Members, a very accomplished gentleman himself, an aerospace engineer representing the First District of Oklahoma, has also worked within the McDonald's system and owns multiple restaurants throughout the different portions of Oklahoma and is actually on the national leadership team.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Kevin Hern), to share a little bit about his State of Oklahoma.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Hern for coming, and I appreciate his time.

Our next speaker today is Representative Brad Wenstrup. In some circles, he is called Colonel Wenstrup. He is a great man and my classmate. He has been awarded the Bronze Star, as well as the Combat Action Badge, for his service.

In fact, it was on a baseball field a year and a half ago that that Combat Action Badge showed itself off again when he was the only one equipped to be able to put a tourniquet on Steve Scalise and save his life.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup), my fellow classmate from Ohio's Second District.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. It is my belief that that kind of common sense will prevail with the majority of the American people, knowing our job and continuing to work to keep the safety and security of the American people as a high priority.

Our next speaker tonight is a Member in his sophomore term but who already has many accomplishments in the political arena.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Jodey Arrington, who

served under President George W. Bush and as chief of staff to the FDIC Chairman, representing Texas' 19th Congressional District.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Arrington for coming, and I appreciate his kind remarks, and sobering ones, at the same time. We do have a problem at the border with drugs. We do have a problem with violence of illegal aliens. That is why we continue to message through this.

Just 2 nights ago, sitting right about there was my sister-in-law whose brother was a United States Army veteran and a good friend of mine who one day messed up his knee. He had surgery, and the next thing you know, he was addicted to pain killers, opioids. Opioids led to heroin, and then, unable to come off heroin, it led to him committing suicide 3 years ago.

This is a real problem. If we were able to cut down only a small percentage of the drugs, and if we were able to reduce only a small percentage of the murders, the sexual assaults, and the human trafficking, my question is: Would a border structure still not be worth it?

To me, that is a very commonsense question. How much does it need to be reduced before it is relevant to all of us?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Guest), our next speaker this afternoon who is a solid new Member, a former district attorney from the State of Mississippi who is already serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee and Homeland Security Committee.

MR. GUEST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As a former district attorney, I have seen firsthand how damaging narcotics and synthetic drugs can be to individuals, families, and our communities.

In 2017, drug overdoses killed 72,000 Americans, more than car crashes and gun violence combined. The most dangerous of these drugs, fentanyl, is 50 times more potent than heroin and accounted for almost twice the number of fatal overdoses in 2017.

Last year, law enforcement officers in Mississippi seized more than 800,000 dosage units of fentanyl. The fentanyl seized was enough to kill nearly 14 percent of the population of Mississippi.

This lethal narcotic is smuggled into our country by transnational criminal organizations or drug cartels. Just last month, Federal law enforcement officials seized more than 250 pounds of fentanyl at the Nogales port of entry on the United States-Mexico border.

As we continue to aggressively police our points of entry, drug cartels will attempt to gain access through the areas of the border that are not secured, forcing us to devote manpower to police these unsecured sections of our border.

It is apparent that drug cartels want to profit from the addiction and the destruction that these drugs have on American lives. This Congress has not only the opportunity but also the duty to act, to help limit the flow of drugs into the country and to protect our citizens by securing our southwest border.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Guest for his comments. I appreciate his passion in sharing some of the firsthand experiences that he is seeing in the great State of Mississippi.

Our next two speakers are from border States that certainly have a perspective on what is going on as we see even right now.

One is an accomplished medical doctor who served and practiced there in the State of Texas for nearly three decades. He is not one of the louder Members, but he is often considered one of our more effective Members.

It is my privilege to yield to the gentleman from Texas, Representative Michael Burgess.

Mr. Speaker, I will not soon forget those lines: I did my job putting on my uniform every day. Congressman, if you had been doing your job, my daughter would be here today.

I hope that message resonates in all 434 Members who are currently in the House.

Mr. Speaker, if Congressmen and Congresswomen would do their job, these children, these daughters, these sons, these mothers, and these wives and husbands would still be here today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs). Andy Biggs is one of the truth tellers in this House. He is from Arizona's Fifth District. He is a retired attorney who also served in the Arizona legislature for 14 years, and he is a bold voice in the United States House.

Mr. Speaker, we acknowledge there are problems with ports of entry. We have no problem in increasing training or border agents. We are not opposed to that at all. What we don't understand is why there is not an all-of-the-above approach, a commonsense approach that would allow us to continue to reduce and sometimes eliminate some of the issues that we are seeing.

My next speaker is a classmate of mine serving faithfully on the Agriculture and the Education and Labor

Committees. He is a business owner who is responsible for creating thousands of jobs from the land that he comes from, Augusta, Georgia, representing Georgia's 12th District.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Allen).

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's sincere words.

Mr. Speaker, one of my friends is another Member from Georgia who serves on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, actually owns Carter's Pharmacy, a pharmacist by nature, and actually became a mayor and was a general assembly member. He is one of the hardest working guys in this House. It is my privilege to acknowledge Representative Buddy Carter from Georgia's First.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter).

I appreciate Representative Carter's passion on this issue and laying out, really, a heartfelt case why border security is so important.

So many times we hear the argument that there are as many and, in some places, even a higher percentage of assaults or crimes, murders, et cetera, in communities with American citizens as there are with some of the illegal immigrants.

My question is: Does that make it okay? See, that is the thing that we have to take a look at from a commonsense perspective is that, when we do begin to reduce this, it allows us to have the resources to be able to concentrate on some of the areas as well.

A class member from Arkansas has quite a distinguished history. Prior to his congressional service, Mr. Hill was a commercial banker and an investment manager for two decades. But, not only that, President George H.W. Bush appointed Mr. Hill to be Executive Secretary to the President's Economic Policy Council, where he coordinated all White House economic policy. He does a great job and works hard on our Financial Services Committee as well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill), my friend from Arkansas' Second District.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's work and his friendship in this House as well.

A new Member from Texas, someone who represents the southwest Texas area, I believe, represents portions of Austin, Texas, as well, someone who is new but no less experienced, a former first assistant attorney general and a former Federal prosecutor, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Mr. Speaker, this evening, we have heard from Members across the country about the devastating toll illegal immigration has had on American families and American workers. The Democrats' divisive and disconnected immigration agenda has real consequences and leads to real victims.

What makes this such a calamity is not only the cost to Americans that we have talked about tonight, but the fact that these tragedies are completely avoidable if Congress, as we heard earlier, would do its job and secure the border.

I want to tell you about Miss Sharon Gross from my district in North Carolina. Just over a year ago, Sharon had finished a 5-mile bike ride with her 18-year-old daughter in Creekside Park, where I have been, in Archdale, North Carolina. They began their trip home in ``Roxie,'' the vehicle her daughter received for her 16th birthday.

As her daughter was driving home, she saw a white SUV heading the opposite direction and beginning to swerve from the outer lane. The vehicle hit them head-on. Sharon described the next moment: ``The next thing I remember was the sound of the metal crashing and twisting in front of us. I vaguely remember everyone running to us and telling us to get out because the car was about to explode. I couldn't get out and could barely breathe.''

Sharon thanks God that her daughter was largely unharmed, but Sharon suffered five broken bones in her back and a severely broken sternum, leaving a large hole in her chest. She now has chronic pain that impacts her daily life.

The driver of the white SUV was a man by the name of Mr. Rodriguez. He had a blood alcohol concentration of .20, 2\1/2\ times the legal limit in North Carolina.

Mr. Rodriguez is in our country illegally. He did not own the vehicle he was driving, nor did he even have a driver's license, and this was his third drunk driving charge. He then served only 11 months in prison and has now been released.

Mr. Rodriguez's time in prison may have come to an end, but the physical, mental, and emotional scars that Sharon has, well, they will never fade. Making matters worse, Mr. Rodriguez was uninsured, leaving thousands of dollars in medical bills, adding to the emotional and physical and now financial pain for Sharon and her family.

Sharon stated: ``It is very difficult for me to have all this constant pain and then deal with all the emotions I am feeling about someone who comes into our country illegally and gets a little pat on the hand when he breaks all our laws.'' She said: ``To say my life was shattered is an understatement.''

You see, we can do better. We must do better for Sharon and for all Americans who have been impacted by illegal immigration. That means an all-of-the-above approach to border security, including construction of additional physical structures and barriers. Border security not only helps keep our families safe, but it also continues the American tradition of being a welcoming Nation.

Many of us are proud of our legal immigrant heritage. Though it goes underreported, America has the most generous legal system in the world. Think about it. We proudly welcome 1 million legal immigrants into our country every single year.

In fact, just last year, the first full year of the Trump administration in 2017, the number was 1,127,167 new citizens whom we welcomed. These are people from all over the world who have raised their right hand, promising to obey the laws of our land and contribute to our blessed Nation.

As President Trump said on this very floor just 2 days ago: ``Legal immigrants enrich our Nation and strengthen our society in countless ways. I want people to come into our country . . . but they have to come in legally.''

You see, in America, we can do both. We can continue to be the beacon of hope throughout the world, and we can do much better in protecting the American people. After all, it is the first oath we take.

But the clock is ticking. We face another impasse this week. Will our Democratic colleagues support commonsense policies to end this crisis, or will they continue to disengage on solutions, suggesting ideas like abolishing ICE and stopping additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security?

It is time to put productivity over personality and people over politics. Anything less would be immoral.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding.

Let me just say, I spent the last several hours in a hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee, a hearing called by the Democrats on the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. The hearing was evaluating the failures of the Trump administration on the child separation policy.

Let me just share with you some of the statements of the witnesses. These were pediatricians. These were ACLU lawyers. Statements like the Trump administration policy was intentionally hurtful, that it was an incredibly difficult position that people were in, that parents have a right to keep their children safe, and that this was nothing more than government-sanctioned child endangerment.

Mr. Speaker, I want to share a story with you. Just like Mr. Walker, I had a guest here at the State of the Union the other night when the President was here. My guest was Chris from Keller, Texas, and he sat up in the gallery right behind us here.

I met Chris probably a year and a half to 2 years ago. He came to see me one day, brought in, actually, by his mother. His mother was concerned because he had suffered an injustice in his life, and he was upset, and he couldn't get over it. He just needed to talk to someone, and a Member of Congress is the last person I can think of to talk to, but maybe it can help.

So Chris told me his story. I practiced medicine for 25 years, and I heard some sad stories. I have been in Congress for 15 years, and I have heard some sad stories. But I will tell you, this was the saddest story that I can recall ever having heard.

Chris was serving his country in Iraq. In fact, he was in Iraq in 2005 when they had the big election where everyone was going down the road with an ink-stained thumb, and he helped make that happen. He helped pull that off.

Chris continued his service in various forms and was in Iraq when he got word that his wife was ill. His wife was, as it turns out, very, very ill, and he had to come home. He cared for her for the last few months of her life before she succumbed to breast cancer.

He said he made her a promise right at the end of that illness that he would

always, always, always take care of their daughter. Now Chris is a single dad. He has got an only child. The child was 12, 13 years old, the light of his life. Everything in Chris's life was wrapped up in his daughter.

His daughter came home one day and said she wanted to go spend the night at a friend's house, and Chris said no.

She said: Please, Daddy, you never let me do anything. Please let me go.

After multiple entreaties, Chris agreed. She could go over to this friend's house and spend the night.

At some point during the evening, the girls went out to a convenience store that was across the street. She drops her cellphone, goes back to retrieve it, and she was hit by a car. There were a number of cars coming down the street at that point. One was going faster than the others. All of the other cars stopped, but the car that hit Chrishia inflicted substantial injury upon her.

The driver of that vehicle did stop, and the police were called. The driver of that vehicle was in the country without the benefit of citizenship. So the driver of that car was taken down to the police station. Drug and alcohol tests were administered. A search of the records revealed a previous infraction with Customs and Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He had come into the country illegally before, so there was that. He had speeding tickets, and he had been arrested for driving without a license. In fact, this time the only citation that he received was driving without a license, and he was released after 35 minutes.

Chris came in to see me several months later, literally at the end of his rope. I will never forget as he told me this story and he looked at me with tears in his eyes.

He said: Congressman, I put on the uniform of my country. I served my country. I did my job. Mr. Congressman, if you had been doing your job, my daughter would be here today.

I have to tell you, as I was walking Chris back to where he could get a cab to his hotel after the State of the Union Address--we have actually corresponded on a fairly regular basis, and he is a very likeable individual--as we walked off the Hill to get to where he could catch a cab beyond the Capitol Police barrier, he said: I really have enjoyed meeting you, Congressman. You have been great to me.

I said: Chris, I would give anything if we had never met.

This is not a manufactured crisis. This is a real crisis affecting our citizens and our constituents. The people on the panel today were very concerned about the Trump administration's policy from last June. But this is not a new deal. There has been a problem on our Texas border, particularly in the lower Rio Grande sector for years. The previous administration had problems. The Clinton administration had problems. The Carter administration had problems. It is a difficult problem, and it does need to be solved.

President Trump has outlined a reasonable approach that, yes, includes sensors; yes, includes increased personnel; yes, includes all- weather roads in areas; and, yes, it does include a barrier. Without that, there cannot be success in securing our southern border, and as a consequence, our citizens cannot be safe and secure in their homes.

I thank the gentleman for providing the time tonight and leading this hour.

I hope Chris does get some measure of peace eventually, but, clearly, this is a problem that has affected a great many lives of people in our districts. I think we each can find someone in our district who has suffered from a similar loss.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding time, and I thank him for his leadership on this important issue.

We are here because we are discussing the importance of border security for the United States of America, a question of our sovereignty, the basic duty of a sovereign nation to secure its borders.

I had the great privilege of spending some time with the men and women of the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas this past week--2 days--with my fellow Texas freshman Congressman Dan Crenshaw. What I saw was alarming.

What we learned from Border Patrol is that there will be upwards of 400,000 people crossing the border through the Rio Grande Valley sector this year alone. And of that 400,000 people, 200,000 of them, give or take, won't even be apprehended because the men and women of the Border Patrol don't have the tools they need, don't have the fencing and the barriers they need, don't have the ability to drive a vehicle parallel--lateral--to the Rio Grande River, don't have the radio signal to be able to communicate on the border.

We found that, of the 200,000 people who will be apprehended, 90 percent of them will be captured and released because we have judicially mandated capture and release today. We have judges who have told us that we have got to capture people and then release them back out into our communities without going through the proper processes to truly vet asylum and truly vet what we are dealing with. The result of that brings tragic consequences.

The Gulf Cartel in Mexico will make $130 million this year--$130 million--trafficking human beings across the Rio Grande Valley sector. They are integrated with FARC. They are integrated with terrorist networks. They have operational control of our border along Texas, and we are just acting like there is nothing to see.

The Speaker of the House had us in session for less than 48 hours last week with a handful of show votes. What do we have this week? More votes just that are kind of plodding along, suspension votes.

We are not having a robust debate. This Chamber is virtually empty. We are not having a robust debate about our border and our national security and about the lives of American citizens and the lives of the migrants who seek to come here.

There are migrants today who are endangered and enslaved to the cartels. There were 54 people found in a stash house last Friday when I was with Border Patrol, in a house in Houston, who are now being held hostage by cartels to pay their money back because the cartels brought them into the United States.

How is that compassion? How is that somehow beneficial to migrants?

That is the truth. Those are the facts when we talk to our men and women in the Border Patrol.

Let's talk about the women, the young girls, who are abused on the path. I was on the Rio Grande River, and I spoke to a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old girl. My son Charlie is going to turn 10 this year. These girls were traveling with no parents. They want to have a better life.

I want to welcome folks to the United States of America, but you have got to have legal channels to make it work, both for our safety and the safety of the migrants who come here.

It is extraordinary that we are even having this debate. I cannot believe that this body, the people's House, is ignoring this great tragedy that is going on on our southwest border, with real human lives.

And it is not just the migrants. It is American citizens like Jared Vargas in San Antonio, Texas, which I represent and I am proud to represent. Jared lost his life last July at the hands of somebody here illegally. His beautiful mom, Lori, is still brokenhearted, having lost her wonderful son. His twin brother, who goes to college in Kerrville, in my district, lost his twin brother; and his sister lost her brother because an illegal immigrant who was here, who was

caught, released, caught, released, stopped by law enforcement, let go, 2 days later murdered Jared Vargas.

How can we allow this to happen in the greatest country and the most powerful nation the world has ever known? How can we allow American citizens to die at the hands of illegal immigrants who are here who shouldn't be here, who have broken our laws previously? How can we allow American citizens to die at the hands of the terrorists who are moving drugs into and out of our country through cartels, die because of dangerous fentanyl and dangerous heroin that are coming across our borders at the ports of entry and, yes, between the ports of entry, which the data fully backs up?

It is not just coming through the ports of entry. It is, in fact, coming across on loads across the Rio Grande River, which is not policed.

We have a duty to defend our border.

One last point: Fencing, walls work. In the Rio Grande Valley sector, in the eastern section next to the Gulf of Mexico, there is 35 miles of fencing. In the western section, in McAllen, there is far less fencing and far fewer roads. Ninety-four percent of the traffic comes through the McAllen portion of the Rio Grande Valley sector.

We have a duty to defend our borders. American citizens like Jared Vargas, who lost his life, and the Vargas family, who is now without their family member, and the United States of America deserve better. The migrants who seek to come here deserve better.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss an important topic to our Nation's homeland security, the crisis at our southern border. And it is, indeed, a crisis.

In its most simple form, it is paramount that we know who is coming in and out of our country in order to keep our families and our fellow citizens safe. However, it is impossible to do so when individuals are traversing across our border avoiding checkpoints and bypassing our immigration laws.

Mr. Speaker, I have been to our border. I served on the Homeland Security Committee my first session here. We took a trip to the border. We went to California. It was the first time I had ever been to California. We went to San Diego. In San Diego you need a barrier, you need a wall, and you need a fence. You have got 3 million people in San Diego County, 3 million people in Tijuana separated by a highway. It makes perfect sense to have a barrier there, a fence.

Then we went to Arizona, rugged terrain, mountainous terrain. There you need technology, you need boots on the ground, you need blimps, and you need drones, all of those things. When we were in Arizona, we visited a farmer, a rancher there, who showed us an area where they had a fence. In that area where they had that fence, they had cut it off. It was a 10-foot fence, and they cut it off at 5 foot, put ramps on it, and they had driven a truck over it.

You have to have a fence, and you have to have technology.

We went to McAllen, Texas. It was the first time I had ever been to that part of Texas. We went to the Rio Grande River. Now, I grew up in south Georgia; to me the Rio Grande River was this giant river that you saw in a John Wayne movie. It is anything but. It is a narrow, winding river that in some areas is knee deep. People walk across it. You are going to have to have barriers in some of those areas. You are going to have to have boots on the ground. You are going to have to have technology, blimps and drones, all of those things.

What we are talking about is securing our borders. Everybody wants to say: oh, he wants to build a wall.

Yes, you need a wall in certain areas, and you need a barrier. But you need technology. But most importantly you need security.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to deny the President the ability to deliver on a campaign promise. That is not what this is about. This is about securing our borders. We need to focus. We need to focus about what we are talking about here. This is real. This is serious.

Let me tell you how serious it is. I have seen examples of it. I have seen examples that it creates in my own district, my own congressional district in coastal Georgia.

Just over a month ago, three illegal immigrants were charged with conspiracy to murder a legal, naturalized citizen who threatened to turn them in.

Now, folks, if you want to know how people feel about illegal immigration, ask someone who has become a citizen, who has gone through the process. Don't ask me; ask them. Ask them what they think.

I guarantee you, they are going to be opposed to it. They did it the right way. And we invite them here. We need them here. We want them here. But they did it the right way. They are as much opposed to it, they are as much offended by it as anyone.

It is stories like these that inspired me to introduce H.R. 6333, the Tax Identity Protection Act, in the 115th Congress. The Treasury Department's inspector general noted that up to 1.4 million illegal immigrants could be fraudulently using legal citizens' Social Security numbers, but the IRS refuses to do anything about this, stating that they can't accurately determine which numbers are mistakes and which are fraud.

So I introduced the Tax Identity Protection Act. It would require the IRS to find ways to better determine illegal immigrants using stolen Social Security numbers. I will be reintroducing that bill shortly in the 116th Congress, and I hope that my colleagues will support this legislation that strengthens our national security and protects our personal identities.

Immigration is important. It is important to the history, the culture, and the progress of our country, but it is past time for us to fix our broken immigration system and ensure that people seeking a better life in America are coming through the lawful channels.

I want to thank my colleagues for holding this important and timely Special Order today.

Folks, this is serious. This is important. We need to focus, keep our eye on the ball here.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from North Carolina and appreciate his distinguished service on behalf of the citizens of North Carolina, his leadership of our Republican Study Committee in the last Congress, and his leadership as our Conference leader for this Congress. And I greatly appreciate his personal engagement to help continue this conversation with the American people about the need for enhanced security along our southwest border.

Like my colleagues you have heard from, I have been to the southwest border four times as a Member of Congress. I worked in Texas for nearly a decade, so I am very familiar with the southwest border in Texas. But, as a Congressman, I have gone four times to get at the root of what is the balance that we want between border fencing, barrier, the use of technology, screening technology, enhancements at our ports of entry, and the manpower issue.

Mr. Speaker, we need all of that, and that is, in fact, what we have produced time and time again on the floor. Just in the last year, Mr. Speaker, we have proposed these kinds of commonsense border security issues, and we have not gotten sufficient votes to pass them.

So this is why we find ourselves hearing from the Border Patrol and our officials at Homeland Security that we need additional barrier construction, additional boots on the ground, new judges, additional screening technology--all of the things I hear about from county judges, county sheriffs, Federal law enforcement--to make our border, in fact, safe.

But tonight I want to reflect on the impact in my home State of Arkansas. I see it every day. I have two young adults now, Mr. Speaker, a 19-year-old and a 22-year-old.

When I was in high school, I didn't know anybody who had died of a drug overdose. I didn't know anyone who had committed suicide among my peers in my high school. And I am brokenhearted tonight, Mr. Speaker, to report that my kids and their age group have seen deaths from deadly addiction to these drugs that are coming over our border, our southwest border. It breaks my heart to see them at funerals when they should be at soccer games.

The opioid crisis has killed more than 100 Americans a day and caused 45,000 deaths last year, alone, almost as many as we lost in all of the Vietnam conflict. A third of these deaths were attributable to fentanyl, much of which is manufactured in China.

This Congress, bipartisan, last year, decided to get screening equipment to our postal service to interdict and try to stop fentanyl. Senator Cotton and I want to increase criminal penalties for fentanyl possession and dealing because, Mr. Speaker, in this small Sweet'N Low packet that we are all familiar with, 1 gram has enough--if it were fentanyl--to kill 500 Americans. That is what confronts our kids as it is laced into heroin, pressed into pills, soaked into marijuana on the streets of our country, coming across the southwest border.

So my kids have suffered from it. I have watched their faces. I have hugged a lot of moms. And whenever I think of this issue, I think about Nate Gordon, who lost his life, whose mom I visit with and who has helped me in my roundtables on helping me cope with how to talk to our parents about this deadly addiction that has overtaken our country.

Nate was a kid who got addicted, and he tried to beat it. And he beat it. And then, one night, it took his life.

His mom doesn't have her son anymore, but she has dedicated her life to helping parents to educate kids, to get people in treatment. And that is what we need. We need an entire community to bond with this Congress to fight drug addiction.

I spoke to our attorney general, my friend from North Carolina, and she told me that over 1,000 illegals had been arrested in Arkansas recently, tens of thousands of pills, and over 1,000 pounds of drugs.

So this is something that challenges our whole country, and we have to work together. I commend our President for keeping it at the forefront of the American people, and I commend Mr. Walker for inviting us here to visit about it tonight.